Telephone Directory Assistance
Traditionally, directory assistance has focused on providing telephone number directory information only. Typically, a directory assistance operator receives a request from a caller for the telephone number of a desired party. The operator locates the required number from a listing directory and either supplies the number to the caller or connects the caller to the desired party.
Each year, a growing number of people spend a significant amount of their time traveling for business or pleasure. Mobile communication and portable computers have created an opportunity for these people to conduct business and communicate while away from their homes or places of business. Wireless telephones have become a standard business tool in this environment. However, wireless telephone users may find current directory assistance services inconvenient or difficult to use. Such users are usually away from their general work environments (for example, traveling in a vehicle), and thus may not be able to remember, or make a note of, a desired number. Callers who would normally be able to call upon secretaries or personal assistants at their offices, may not have access to such assistance when traveling thereby not being able to access contact directories etc. The wireless telephone caller thus needs a comparable service to that which they would experience in an office environment. While improvements to telephone directory assistance have been made over the years, such systems do not fully address the needs of wireless telephone users.
The present assignee has also established a country-wide network of directory assistance or call centers that are able to provide customers with nationwide directory assistance.
Private Directories
While private directories for telephone users have existed for some time, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,835,570 and 5,204,894, such systems do not address the needs of wireless telephone subscribers. They do not provide for private individual or private group directories. Furthermore they do not allow for the customization of the directory information by multiple parties and allow listed parties to be selectively reachable while keeping their numbers private.
Existing Personal Information Management software and devices are often used to store private directory information, but are often not convenient or safe tools for providing directory information to mobile telephone users. Corporate employees in many cases must manually synchronize their personal and their corporate directories, and such private directories are often out of date or otherwise inaccurate, consuming what might otherwise be more productive time. Also most existing corporate directory management systems do not facilitate connectivity while keeping contact details, such as employee's home telephone numbers, private.
Therefore, there is a need to provide subscribers more capable private directory services as well as greater connectivity in connection with these private directories services. While these needs exist and are described in the context of a wireless environment, the same problems arise in the wireline environment.